Friday Happy Hour: 3 Ways to Spot If an Image Has Been Manipulated & More

Since announcing the speakers for Luminance (PhotoShelter’s conference this fall in NYC, if you haven’t heard us talk about it yet), we’ve been following their news and coverage even more closely than before. This week we caught a story on Fourandsix, a new company developing solutions to sniff out altered images. We also were excited to see Lytro’s annual solar eclipse in light field, where you can play with the images’ focus – as well as a roundup of other cool content from across the web. Check it out!

3 ways to spot if an image has been manipulated

Fourandsix Technologies is a startup that’s new to the game, but backed by leading image forensics researcher Dr. Hany Farid and Adobe veteran Kevin Connor. Together they’ve been developing solutions to help determine the authenticity of photos, with a suite of products that could be used by news organizations, law enforcement, and others to help figure out if an image has been manipulated. The first release is due out later this year, and in the meantime Kevin Connor shared 3 ways to spot a manipulated image with Poynter:

Check the file and metadata.

Look for telltale tool marks.

Search shadows and reflections.

Connor goes into more detail in the post, so go check out his tips, and also the Fourandsix blog for deeper analysis and how these technologies are developing.

What’s in C.S. Muncy’s photo bag?

Our friends over at The Photo Brigade have a series called “In My Bag”, where photographers are asked to divulge what gear they’re carry around with them these days. Freelance photojournalist C.S. Muncy was the latest contributor. C.S. has been covering protests and political rallies on and off for almost 10 years. His most trusted piece of equipment is the Newswear all weather Chestvest, so that he has everything out in front of him – comes in handy when bending over to reach into a bag just isn’t a possibility.

Mind-boggling 33MP video camera captures 4 billion pixels per second

Japanese broadcasting corporation NHK has been developing an insane 33MP video camera to capture footage for its new Super Hi-Vision format that’s projected to one day replace HDTV. With a frame rate of 120 fps, it’s capturing upwards of 4 billion pixels per second in order to get the crispest images. Footage is meant to be viewed on a giant screen, likely the size of a wall, so the frame rate was increased.

Photog sells image to Nat Geo thanks to SEO

PhotoShelter member and stock photographer Don Couch wrote into us this week to let us know that he had just sold one of his images to National Geographic for display on their website. The best part? The editors found his image of Xibalba – a cave that’s important in Mayan mythology – through organic search, meaning that Don made his sale because of good SEO.

War photog Robert King interviewed on CNN

“Before I go on I want to say that because we have been covering this story night after night we realize that is can be numbing,” said Anderson Cooper, CNN news anchor, in his now nightly report on Syria. “That it may be tempting to turn away and decide you’ve heard enough…It is the same every day and that is the true horror of it.”

In this report, Anderson followed up with PhotoShelter member and war photographer Robert King, who has been covering the crisis in Syria. Robert reports live from Al-Qusayr, Syria and speaks to the constant shelling on civilians including hospitals (which he believes are being targeted by the Syrian army).

Photo by Robert King/An activist and soldiers with the Free Syrian Army hold his weapon while waiting in side a safe houses as the city anticipates another siege of their city by the Syrian Army. Assad

Robert has a gallery of shocking images from the ground: Syria 2012. Warning, many are graphic and may be upsetting. You can also watch Robert’s interview with Anderson here.

AP teams up with celeb photogs to launch new agency

The Associated Press announced this week that they’re teaming up with some of the world’s top entertainment and celebrity photographers to launch a new photo agency, Invision. The agency aims to be the leader in images from the entertainment industry, and has already signed up photographers like Matt Sayles, Jordan Strauss, and Casey Rodgers. (via Photo Archive News)

Source: photoarchivenews.com

50 quick photo tips in under 15 minutes

The folks over at DigitalRev put together this 13-minute video on 50 (or 49) short and sweet photography tips. The video is a little quirky, so don’t go taking it all so seriously.

And thanks to PetaPixel, we have the tips listed via a Reddit user – check them out here.

Solar eclipse captured with Lytro’s light field technology

This is just for fun: Lytro camera owners and employees captured shots of the solar eclipse last week using the Lytro field camera. If you’re not familiar, Lytro technology allows users to focus the image after it’s taken. So go over to this blog post and click around to see how the focus shifts.

Source: blog.lytro.com

Lytro’s Director of Photography Eric Cheng will also be speaking at Luminance this fall.

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